What does it mean to hold a river as water, energy, and borders shift? Crystallized in data and concrete, its flow reduced to political will—deals inked, dams sealed. Yet downstream, floodwaters uncurl calculus and its fingers—fish return, gardens rise. In control’s parallax, the river rewrites itself, unbound, anew.
Holding Rivers, Becoming Mountains
Year produced: 2025
Media: Video, 19”58’
Funding: Against Catastrophe, Gwaertler Stiftung
Solveig Qu Suss
Solveig Qu Suess is a Swiss-Chinese filmmaker and researcher working across documentary film, visual anthropology, and feminist media. Her films explore how systems of vision and power shape collective and intimate experiences of time, space, and memory. Bridging planetary infrastructures and personal archives, her work draws out the deep links between technological and emotional landscapes. Her work has been shown at venues such as the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), HKW Berlin, Onassis Stegi, and the Lisbon Architecture Triennale, Jameel Arts Centre, ZKM Karlsruhe, Guangzhou Image Triennial, Göteborg Biennale, Kunsthall Trondheim, amongst others. She has received fellowships from the Swiss National Science Foundation and Digital Earth, and was in-residence at NYU Shanghai, Fondazione Prada, and Tabakalera. Her writing has appeared in e-flux Architecture, Duke University Press, and Columbia Books on Architecture and the City. She is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Basel and a 2025 mentor at Medialab Matadero.